[Qgis-psc] Financial warning

Mon Mar 4 12:13:28 PST 2019

Hi Jonathan,

On Mon, 4 Mar 2019 at 17:30, Jonathan Moules <jonathan-lists at lightpear.com>
wrote:

> Hi Andreas,
>
> Some thoughts if I may:
>
>  > "In general I think we should be grateful that the core devs
> participate in the paid bug fixing campaign for the low rate of 100 € h
> for us"
>
> This rate seems quite high to me. I don't see how paying "consultancy"
> level rates for bug-fixing is sustainable, even if they're at the
> "lower" end for consultancy rates.  I don't know what the
> overlap/relationship is behind the developers of features that have
> bugs, and the fixers of bugs, but this seems like its skirting close to
> the principle behind "write me a new minivan" Dilbert:
> https://dilbert.com/strip/1995-11-13 - thought I'm obviously not
> suggesting that's anyone's motivation!
>

Counter to your argument, almost all the companies devs are representing,
are/have been sponsors of QGIS:
https://www.qgis.org/en/site/about/sponsorship.html#list-of-sponsors

As Regis mentioned, there are several hours spent on bugs which are not
billed to QGIS.org (almost half from us).

>  > "- devs can only roughly tell me how many days they are really
> available. So I don't know in advance, until I get the invoice. "
> and
>  > "- information comes in at totally different times. Some devs only
> tell me quite late that they are available while others already spent
> some days working on it "
>
> I would suggest requiring standard business processes to be engaged.
> Tell folks ahead of time they can only invoice for X hours. If they want
> to do more, great, but that's their prerogative and they won't get paid
> for it. If the job takes longer than they estimate, well their loss. If
> it takes less time than the estimate, profit.
>
>  > - what would be a fair amount how to distribute the money between
> devs/companies and who would decide?
> Maybe having some sort of auction process where the lowest bids get the
> work.
>
> Just my 2p.
>
> There is a limit in cutting spending before it starts affecting the
quality of the software. Instead, there should be a huge grass root
campaign to raise fund. It still baffles me, large organisations, who
monetise directly/indirectly from QGIS are not in the above list....I know
it is free and open source...etc. But, they can't expect QGIS.org to iron
out the bugs, adds features, have regular/LTR release, packages for their
OS and function within 100-200k euro annual budget. IMO, QGIS usergroups
should pro-actively approach those organisations and persuade (or warn)
them to join the sponsorship program.

Kind regards
Saber

> Cheers,
> Jonathan
>
>
On 2019-03-02 11:35, Andreas Neumann wrote:
> > Hi Paolo,
> >
> > It is very hard to coordinate the exact amount of bug fixing, due to
> > several reasons:
> >
> > - devs can only roughly tell me how many days they are really
> > available. So I don't know in advance, until I get the invoice.
> >
> > - information comes in at totally different times. Some devs only tell
> > me quite late that they are available while others already spent some
> > days working on it
> >
> > - what would be a fair amount how to distribute the money between
> > devs/companies and who would decide?
> >
> > In general I think we should be grateful that the core devs
> > participate in the paid bug fixing campaign for the low rate of 100 €
> > h for us - because if they would sell their services to clients at the
> > same time, they would probably charge 150-180 € an hour and earn more
> > and potentially have a more interesting task than fixing bugs in QGIS.
> > However through their efforts, in return they get the benefit of a
> > "better QGIS" where they could more easily sell their services around
> > QGIS, if it more stable and of better quality. And lets not forget
> > that we have also a lot of "unpaid" contributions towards QGIS.
> >
> > Personally, I would like to keep the process of accepting all
> > available bug fixing hours we get, but rather try to get more funds in.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Andreas
> >
> > Am 02.03.19 um 12:27 schrieb Paolo Cavallini:
> >> Hi Andreas,
> >> thanks for this warning. What prevents us from sticking to the budget,
> >> and allocating to bugfixing only what is available?
> >> I think communicating our needs will help in this regard: I believe
> >> donors will be more motivated when they will know all the additional
> >> donations will go into bugfixing.
> >> All the best.
> >>
> >> On 02/03/19 12:17, Andreas Neumann wrote:
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> In that respect I hope that our change from sponsors  to sustaining
> >>> members (to be voted on during the upcoming AGM) will help to attract
> >>> more organizations to join as financial supporters. I am positive that
> >>> it will help, esp. for governmental organizations and universities.
> >>>
> >>> Andreas
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Am 02.03.19 um 11:50 schrieb Andreas Neumann:
> >>>> Dear PSC,
> >>>>
> >>>> In the light of the current discussion around AGM and fast release
> >>>> pace, here is some additional information and concern I have as the
> >>>> financial manager of the project:
> >>>>
> >>>> Most of our financial resources go into bug fixing (> 50%) and I have
> >>>> the impression that this share is increasing every year. Currently I
> >>>> have to send out a warning that our financial resources are dwindling
> >>>> rapidly - our bank account is down below 30k €. For every release we
> >>>> spend about 10-20k more on bug fixing than allocated in the budget. As
> >>>> a consequence, we will have to either cancel the QGIS grants this year
> >>>> or skip bug fixing of release 3.8 or cut down drastically if we can't
> >>>> find additional financial supporters. I am very grateful that many
> >>>> core qgis devs can find the time to participate in the paid bug fixing
> >>>> (and they do a very good job!) - but unfortunately bugs are coming in
> >>>> quicker ...
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't want to sound overly pessimistic - but it is my duty to let
> >>>> you know about this development that we currently spend more than we
> >>>> get in. Something will have to change in this respect during the 3.8
> >>>> release or we'll have to skip the QGIS grants program this year.
> >>>>
> >>>> Andreas
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Qgis-psc mailing list
> >>>> Qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org
> >>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
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-- 
Saber Razmjooei
www.lutraconsulting.co.uk
+44 (0)7568 129733
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